


In which the Master is haunted by visions of the past

by Udbsken



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udbsken/pseuds/Udbsken
Summary: The Master had to put up with a lot in the 70 years it spent him to get back to 13, but having everyone on Earth turn into a copy of his embarrassing past self is more than he can deal with. Out of options, he’s forced to turn to a younger Doctor for help to get rid of them all
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Kudos: 32





	In which the Master is haunted by visions of the past

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on the bus and haven’t fact checked it so this is based on my no doubt not very accurate memory of how these episodes went. If that bothers you this is probably going to be an irritating read

It had been a pretty good day until the Doctor got a psychic message in his head. Well, actually “good” may have been a bit of an overstatement, considering that all of humanity had been wiped out, he was orbiting in a shuttle around earth with little hope of ever landing safely, he was scheduled to die in the next few days and it was one in the morning and the Doctor was thoroughly sleep deprived. Nevertheless, he wasn’t overly keen to add something else to that list. 

“Doc - Doctor, are you alright?” Wilf said, reminding the Doctor that he was still sitting next to him.

“Yeah, perfectly fine. Just a little telepathic communication.” the Doctor said, trying to not worry him.

In hindsight that was probably a long shot, considering every one of his family and friends had been turned into a lunatic within the last twenty four hours.

“Is that a normal thing for aliens?” Wilf said with a half laugh.

The Doctor smiled at him. He had missed being around humans since he’d put a ban on them. It was grounding; it stopped him from elevating himself too high above the rest of the universe. 

“Some people in my species can do it, if they’re close enough. If I just -“

It had been a while since he’d last done this, with another Time Lord. Was that what this was? No, it was impossible. Gallifrey was gone, he’d destroyed it himself. Still, the signal felt so intimately familiar. The Doctor couldn’t stop the hope from swelling in his chest. Maybe somehow, some way, someone had survived. Maybe it wasn’t just him and the Master, doomed to be alone until both of their deaths. 

_Contact,_ the Doctor reached out in his mind to the other person, hoping against hope that maybe -

_Hi! Sorry, really shouldn’t be messing with time, but if I have to put up with all those idiots for one more minute I really am going to lose it. You don’t mind if we cut this a little short, do you?_

The Doctor blinked, trying to process. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting - something a little more grandiose perhaps? 

_Uh - sorry, who is this?_ the Doctor said.

He heard a laugh - or not that exactly, but the image of mirth in his mind. 

_Seriously? You really are bad at this. Well, I suppose mine couldn’t recognise me either, so I can’t blame you._

The Doctor frowned, only understanding about half of what the voice was meaning. Still, he couldn’t shake the intuition that there was something recognisable about this feeling.

 _I’m the Master_ , the voice said, as if that explained all and didn’t make everything much more confusing. 

_That’s impossible_ , the Doctor told him.

He knew what the Master felt like - the psychic ‘signal’ he gave off - and this was entirely different, although the longer he thought about it, he had to admit there was an undercurrent of familiarity beneath all the differences.

_Well, that thing can’t change my genetic code if it already matches the blueprint, can it? Give me a second, I’ll show you what I mean._

The Doctor felt the presence recede from his mind, leaving him alone and even more tired than he’d been a minute ago.

“What’d he say, then?” asked Wilf.

“To be honest with you, it didn’t make a lot of sense.” the Doctor said, rubbing a hand over his face.

Before he could make a plan for handling the increasingly bizarre situation, or perhaps just collapse on the spot, there was a crackling flash of blue light a few metres away from where they were sitting, materialising a grinning man onto the ship.

The Doctor got to his feet, stepping in front of Wilf on instinct, who had stood behind him. The man who’d called himself the Master was short, fashionably dishevelled, with a plaid waistcoat and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Strapped to his arm was a device which looked like if a teleporter had been made out of materials shoplifted from a mechanic in the 1960s.

“Ah!” he said, looking at the device proudly, “I didn’t think it would work outside Earth’s orbit! Half expected myself to be disassembled in the vacuum of space.” he grinned at the Doctor, “Glasses. It’s been a while. And you must be that boring human whose name I can’t be bothered to remember.”

Wilf started at being addressed and began, “Wilfred Mo-“

“I don’t care.” the man interrupted him, deadpan.

“Are you really the Master?” the Doctor said incredulously, trying to keep up with the thousands of thoughts running through his head.

“Why, don’t I look it?” 

“It’s just -“ the Doctor struggled to pick out a reason, “why are your pants rolled up?”

“It’s-“ the Master (apparently) started to explain, then waved his hand dismissively, “you’ll understand when you’re older.” 

“Wait, so what are you doing looping back on your own timeline? That can be dangerous.” the Doctor said, starting to see his old friend in the stranger in front of him.

“Oh trust me, I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice. Girlfriend troubles, the usual. She stranded me in Nazi occupied Paris and stole my TARDIS.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Well, it may be a little one sided.” he said, sounding despondent for the first time since he’d teleported in, “I don’t think she’s warmed to me yet. It’ll probably get worse once she sees Gallifrey.” he said, talking almost to himself.

The mention of the Doctor’s home sent the same chill down his spine as it always did. An image of red grass and an expansive sky drifted across his consciousness, leaving a trail of guilt and remorse in its wake.

“No one can see Gallifrey anymore.” the Doctor said hollowly, “It’s gone; it’s destroyed.”

The Master’s mouth quirked upwards. “You hit the nail on the head with that one.”

“Hang on,” said the Doctor, his brain taking a second to catch up with his mouth, “She?”

“Yeah, it took me six months to get used to the pronoun thing too, but I’m pretty good at it now.” 

The Doctor looked at Wilf, who looked even more confused than he was, if that was possible. He felt like his brain was leaking out of his ears.

The Master clapped his hands together. “You’re getting distracted. The point is that I’m here to help get rid of all them.” he gestured downwards, “I hate humans, but even they’re better than thousands of embarrassing memories walking around asking me personal questions. I’m sorry you had to deal with all that, by the way.” he said, wincing, “I was working through some stuff.”

The Doctor half smiled - he’d never expected to hear an apology out of the Master’s mouth. “Well, it’s all water under the bridge really. You were - are - the same as ever underneath it. My best friend. I’d say boyfriend, but I think it’s probably pretty one sided.”

To the Doctor’s surprise, the Master looked genuinely taken aback, his eyes suddenly misty. It was as though the Doctor had just hit him upside the head, although he probably would have taken that in stride, considering they were enemies and all.

He shook his head slowly, like he was refusing something, and when he looked up again, there was no trace of his sudden emotional shift at all. “Enough with the small talk. I’d appreciate spending as little time on this mess as possible, if you don’t mind.” he gave the Doctor a tight smile, “Ok, so there’s no need for you to crash any space ships into mansions this time around.”

“I wasn’t planni-“

“That was a bit dramatic, even for me. And I’m the _Master._ ” he snorted and waved his teleport, “this should work to teleport multiple people. I’ve never tried it before, but I’m a genius, so I’m guessing it’ll go smoothly. Worst case scenario: we all get dismembered and die a horribly painful death with our body parts landing somewhere between here and on the carpet in front of the original, who at this moment is trying to pinpoint your location, as well as doing seven billion other things that are very embarrassing and I do not want to talk about.”

Wilf looked mildly panicked, while the Master gave a shrug like ‘doesn’t sound so bad, to be honest’. 

“Okay,” said the Doctor, “but once we get down there we’ll be surrounded by hundreds of Masters, many of them armed and dangerous. So-“

“I don’t need arms to be dangerous!” the Master interrupted, offended, “what do you think, I made this teleporter through the power of friendship? Any one of me could kill us all twice before we’d even began to execute a plan.”

“Alright,” the Doctor said, hoping the Master inferred from his tone just how little he was helping, “that’s very useful information, but maybe we should think of a plan that doesn’t involve certain death?”

The Master said something under his breath that sounded like “you’re dying anyway” but which the Doctor chose to believe was “you’re very clever and right and also handsome” so he wouldn’t hit anyone and disrupt the harmony of their newfound team. 

“We could try hacking the healing machine to set the blueprint back to humans.” the Doctor suggested, “the sonic doesn’t work on it,” he ignored the Master’s pointed eye roll, “but with the two of us, we could maybe do it manually, since you know how you set it.”

“Fair. It would take time though, and it’s hard to do an infiltration mission when you’re the only people who don’t look identical.”

“Easier than you might think.” the Doctor said, remembering how the cactus people snuck past the Master’s defences. The future Master glared at him.

“Well, if that machine’s turning everyone into him,” Wilf said, gesturing at the Master, “wouldn’t it stop doing that if we just smashed the thing?”

The Doctor and the Master both stared at him. “Not that I understand any of this alien technology mumbo jumbo.” he said, holding up his hands.

“The process is complete now, Wilf. Destroying the healing machine would only destroy the way to reverse it.” the Doctor said.

“No, it’s self healing.” the Master corrected, “it repairs continuously and constantly based on the blueprint.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “You set it up so it would stop if you destroyed the machine?”

The Master shrugged. “It’s easier to maintain. And I was confident.” 

The Doctor turned back to Wilf. “Fine, well, that’s easy then. We teleport down, smash the thing into a million pieces before the Master knows what hit him, and the world is saved thanks to the brilliance of one Wilfred Mott.” 

He flashed Wilf a smile, which he returned by blushing. The Master mimed vomiting in the background. 

“Obviously I thought of a plan as simple as that. The machine’s well guarded. We wouldn’t be able to destroy much before we were stopped. I could maybe take out a few with this,” he said, taking a machine which looked suspiciously like a TCE out of his pocket, “but even then we wouldn’t stand much of a shot. It _would_ kill the human hosts, but I’ve already killed a couple, so really it’s no skin off your moral nose.”

The Doctor looked at him flatly. “In my defence I was annoying myself.” the Master said.

With a sigh, the Doctor shook off the exasperation and thought for a minute.

“Do the Masters operate off a hive mind, or are they independent?” he asked slowly.

“Usually using the healing machine would make them independent, but I maintained low level telepathic communication to link them more or less. Mostly to do cool synchronised tricks.” 

“Then if we can distract the original…” 

“They’d all be less efficient!” the Master finished, “It could work, although I’d probably catch on and drop the telepathic field. We’ll only have a matter of minutes at most.”

“That won’t matter if we have a destructive enough force.” the Doctor said, starting to get excited, “There must be something on this ship which would-“

His eyes darted around the woefully bomb free room, landing on Wilf, who held up the gun he’d showed the Doctor earlier, hopeful suggestion in his eyes.

The Doctor sighed. “It would work. But _guns_ …”

The Master smacked his arm. “Get over yourself; you can use a gun to save your whole stupid favourite race.”

The Doctor gave him a small surprised smile, feeling the weight of their friendship at the Academy behind that small affectionate physicality. With a deep breath, he took the gun.

“But there’s still the matter of the distraction.” he said.

“Oh that’s easy.” the Master said, “Where are those annoying green people?”

“In the control room, I think.” Wilf said.

“Right,” the Master said, starting in a direction before stopping and whirling on his heels, “I have no idea where that is.”

The Doctor sighed and led the way, taking the pair down a few corridors before pushing open the door to the cockpit. The two cactus aliens turned around, the taller one yelping when he saw the Master.

“W-who are you? When did he get on the ship?” he hissed to the Doctor. 

“Master, genocidal lunatic; nice to meet you. Do you have a wormhole jump on this ship?” 

“Hang on, wasn’t that guy who hacked the healing pod back on that backwards planet called the Master?” said the shorter one (the Doctor suddenly regretted not asking for their names).

“Unimportant. Tell me whether you have a wormhole jump in the next three seconds or I will rearrange your fingers.” the Master said in his usual infinite patience.

“Yes, of course we have a jump.” the taller said nervously, “Why?” 

“In exactly one minute, jump out of earth’s orbit.” the Master said, “Go back to your home planet, drift off into deep space and die, I don’t care; just get out of here. Got that?”

The two people looked at each other, startled.

“One minute.” the Master said, shutting the door. 

He gave the Doctor a grin. “He’s watching the ship. If we jump, he won’t know what we’re up to and hopefully the worry will be enough of a distraction for you to get a few good shots off at the computer.”

“Okay,” the Doctor said, hating how comfortable the gun felt in his hand, “Let’s save the earth.”

The Master nodded. “I hate myself. Which is, coincidentally, why I’m doing this.”

Wilf nodded, looking worried but brave all the same. “We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna bring my Donna home.”

The Doctor and Wilf put their hands on the teleporter. Just as the ship jumped, they dematerialised.

The Doctor didn’t want to critique the Master’s work, but it was obvious the teleport was a rush job. He’d used Vortex Manipulators several more times than he’d like to, and even that cheap and nasty time travel was a little more bearable than the feeling off his molecules being disassembled, thrown roughly through the void of space, and then violently reassembled in a way that felt like his innards had gone through a blender. The Doctor stumbled a little, taking a second to absorb their surroundings, the machine and the dozens of armed guard Masters looking at them in an unfocused way, as if they only just woke up. 

The future version of the Master, who was no doubt more used to the feeling of his eyeballs being pressure cooked inside his skull, nudged the Doctor. “Shoot it now?”

Nodding, the Doctor raised his gun and fired off several rounds into the computer the Master had been fiddling with, emptying the rest of the chamber into the gate for good measure. With a flare of sparks and a minor fire which the Doctor made a mental note to put out later, the gate short circuited. The Doctor watched in awe as the Masters around him started turning back to their regular human selves, leaving only one. His Master, with his hoodie, blond hair, and tendency to turn into a skeleton, came stumbling through the door just as the humans turned back to the right species, looking around like they’d just had their bodies and minds replaced by a crazed alien, which was probably apt. The Master, singularly focused as always, shot the Doctor a furious glare, ignoring Wilf and his future self standing either side of him. 

“That ship shouldn’t have had any teleports, you meddling little -“ he spat before he was interrupted by the other Master (this was getting confusing).

“Oh that’s easily explained. Here, catch.” the future Master said, tossing him the teleport.

The Master caught it on reflex, disappearing in a flash of blue the second it made contact. The Doctor took a half step forward, feeling disappointed despite himself.

“Where did you send him?” he asked the Master.

“Gallifrey.” the Master said, looking somber for once, “They’ll cure him of the whole being insane bit, and then he’ll do what he usually does. Travel around for a bit.”

“Alone?” the Doctor asked, already knowing the answer.

The Master gave a funny look. “He’s the Master. Always alone.”

“Never really alone. Not while I’m still here.” the Doctor said, determined to mean it.

Sure, he and the Master were the last two Time Lords, but that wasn’t all he meant to him. That little boy on Gallifrey who chased the Doctor through fields of red grass and helped him hack warp drives to get out of class - that was who he’d follow half way across the universe to bring home. And he would do it, one day. By the looks of the person next to him, not anywhere in the near future, but one day - he was sure. For a moment he thought the Master’s face had crumpled, overcome with emotion, but when he looked again he was just staring pensively at the broken gate.

“Will I ever see him again?” 

“Nope. Definitely not. Never. Don’t worry about him.” the Master said quickly. When he saw the Doctor’s face, he corrected himself: “Well, the timeline’s changed now, so maybe both our memories will too. Who knows? Probably best not to mess with the web of time. But then again, anything that gets under the Time Lords’ skin is a good act in my book.”

“Oh yeah, the history of the universe. Have we made any splashes?”

The Master laughed. “Huge. Technically you should be dead. I can sort that out right now for you if you’d like.”

“No thanks,” the Doctor said, trying not to let a huge relieved smile break out on his face, “I’m sure the universe will right that one eventually.”

“Let’s see: my memory will right itself thanks to time shenanigans, but your memory will need to be changed. Do you mind if I get rid of myself? I had a good long con thing going in my time; hate to ruin it.” 

“Go ahead.” the Doctor said. “I look forward to the surprise. What are you going to do once you get back?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I’d spent seventy years learning to be good and was going to do something utterly wholesome?”

“Absolutely not.” the Doctor said without having to think about it.

He knew his boyfriend too well for that.

The Master shrugged. “I wouldn’t either. But I trust you’ll handle it.”

He turned to face him, placing his fingers on the Doctor’s temples so lightly it made him shiver. 

“Before you do wipe me, though, I should tell you,” the Master paused, “thanks for helping me. And good luck with yours; I’m sure she’ll come around eventually.”

The Master smiled to himself. “You haven’t met her.”

“Well I’ve met you. And I know whatever else she may be, she won’t be stupid. And she’ll care about you. That’s my universal truth.” the Doctor said.

The Master stared at him, his eyes heartbreakingly honest and, for a second, so, so old, “You have no idea how much I wish that were true.” 

And then the Doctor was gone.

He woke up with a headache. It took him a second to get a bearing on his surroundings. Broken healing gate? Check. Billionaires glaring at him and angrily talking into mobile phones? Check. Rubble everywhere and a bruise on his arm? Check. The memories came flooding back: crashing the ship into the mansion, yelling at the Master, tag teaming on the Time Lords and Rassilon (that part didn’t make a lot of sense, but he was too tired to care). Just his typical Wednesday really. And he was still alive. He hadn’t heard the four knocks. Oh well; that just meant the corner his death was around was a little further away than he thought. It was still coming. The thought made him shudder. 

He was about to flop back to the ground and sleep, possibly forever, possibly also while flipping off the capitalists whose carpet he was sleeping on, when he noticed a piece of paper on the floor a ruler’s length away from him. It was a note, written in unfamiliar scrawly handwriting. The Doctor picked it up and read:

_The human wanted me to tell you he’s going to look for “Donna”. Hope you enjoy my edit; I’ve always been better at that than you. Catch you the long way around._

Well, it made about as much sense as anything else that happened today. He lay back down, trying his best to ignore the armed guards who were getting back to their jobs instead of marvelling at the mystery of life. The Doctor closed his eyes and smiled dizzily at the ceiling. Another Christmas Day, another apocalypse. Next year, he thought, I’m going to a different planet for Christmas.

“The curtain’s alight!” someone yelled.

He had forgotten the fire. 

Goddammit.


End file.
